In the News

globaliD co-founder and CEO Greg Kidd included in One World Identity’s (OWI) 2019 list of Top 100 Influencers in Identity.  OWI Top 100 Influencers  “represents pioneers, innovators and visionaries who are working to advance inclusion, improve products and services, keep personal data safe, and protect privacy.”

Melissa Guzy: “We want to see dedication and perseverance in founders, and that they are passionate about the business and will have the desire and ability to get through difficult times. Startups are hard, and an entrepreneur needs to understand that the roadblocks that they likely will encounter must be tackled. Of course, I care about the market opportunity and the technology, but I care more about working with a great dedicated founder who wants to build a great company.”

Hibob, a Tel Aviv provider of cloud-based HR and benefits management software, today announced that it has raised $20 million in an extension of its series A round. The money comes from a raft of investors, including Bessemer Venture Partners, Battery Ventures, Eight Roads Ventures, Arbor Ventures, and Presidio Ventures.

CEO and cofounder Ronni Zehavi says the cash infusion will accelerate Hibob’s expansion into the U.S. and Europe — a move that’s already underway. The startup has grown 460 percent year-over-year since 2015, he says, and counts among its “hundreds” of customers companies like Monzo, eToro, Happy Socks, IronSource, Receipt Bank, Fiverr, and Karmarama

As electronic commerce grows — by 15% in 2018 – fraud grows too, because that’s where the money is, as Willie Sutton explained years ago in why he robbed banks.

Forter, which develops an evolving array of sophisticated fraud-prevention tools, found in its bi-annual report that fraud attacks varied by industry, by merchant, merchandise and customers. E-commerce growth has been accompanied by growth in online fraud in new areas, like food delivery.

Founded by a group of ex-Baidu executives, Silot’s patented system assists banks in organizing their previously siloed data. The startup’s platform then feeds the bank’s data as well as its policies and rules into a decision engine – a “brain for banks” if you will – that makes decisions on behalf of bank staff.

In the case of Krungsri Bank – Thailand’s fifth-largest bank – Silot’s pilot test helped the organization detect transaction fraud and money laundering, block fraudulent transactions, as well as automate its merchant onboarding and verification processes. In addition, Silot also provided a QR code payments solution to Krungsri, which it, in turn, offers to merchants.

Berkshire Hathaway GUARD Insurance Companies announced today a new partnership with Planck, an artificial intelligence (AI) driven data platform for commercial insurance. This partnership will allow GUARD to expedite its digital underwriting initiatives for its small and medium business segment.

Sy Foguel – CEO and President at Berkshire Hathaway GUARD Insurance Companies “In the next few months, the time from submission to quote is going to be dramatically reduced.”

Those smaller B2B operators “are not in the best position to be accepting and taking credit risks,” Sebastian Rymarz, chief business officer for Fundbox, told Karen Webster in a recent interview with PYMNTS.

“The risk can be devastating, especially if you have a lot of concentration” in one area, he said, riffing off the Munchery example.

Guy Zipori, CEO and Co-Founder of Skyline AI, an artificial intelligence asset manager for commercial real estate, won the Rising Star Award at Real Estate Finance & Investment Magazine’s Commercial Real Estate 20 Awards 2019. The Commercial Real Estate 20 awards honors achievement among investment companies and private equity funds focusing on middle market transactions as well as the industry’s rising stars. This latest honor comes just weeks after Skyline AI was named to CB Insights’ AI 100 List of Most Innovative Artificial Intelligence Startups. 

The chief executive of Abra, a Bitcoin-based app that lets people buy and sell currencies, virtual coins, and Nasdaq-listed stocks, expects corporate adaptions of the technology behind cryptocurrency to amount to little, if anything. As one of the earliest employees at Netscape, a dot-com era poster-child and creator of the once-dominant, namesake web browser, Barhydt said he witnessed the flameout of an analogous fad during the Internet’s early years.

The combination of world-class technological educational institutes and large investments into the research and development of cybersecurity, deep technology, and infrastructure have made it a hotspot for innovation in new tech. Now around 15 percent of all venture capital funding in cybersecurity goes to Israeli tech companies.

Together with payments tech company Adyen, we set out in search of the most promising new startups based on their performance, growth, and potential. The top-5 from each country will join the Tech5, a community of the hottest young tech companies in Europe and Israel.

Payments losses are a fact of life for eCommerce businesses because of chargebacks, ACH returns, and unreturned products. Unlike lending businesses who have to accept a large percentage of losses as part of their business model, many startups treat payments losses as a nuisance that doesn’t require much attention. This can lead to spikes in losses because of unchecked customer behavior. It’s not only risky for your merchant account or ACH credentials but is a viable threat to your bottom line and can add up quickly. Even leaders in online payments and retail, such as PayPal, use internal and external collections to augment their underwriting, representation, and loss mitigation activities

TrueAccord announced today a new 12,000-square-foot shared services operation in Lenexa, pledging 150 new jobs as part of the $1.34 million TrueAccord investment. Selecting the Kansas City metro for the project followed a thorough nationwide search, said Sheila Monroe, chief operating officer of TrueAccord, an automated debt recovery platform that bridges the gap between the creditor and those in debt.

The expansion and new team members are expected to help further the TrueAccord mission to modernize and improve the debt recovery marketplace, Monroe added.

Forter, the leader in e-commerce fraud prevention that automatically protects merchants during each moment a consumer interacts with their brand online, today announced a new agreement with Priceline that will help the online travel agency guard against fraud, increase transaction approval rates and improve the customer checkout experience.

Abra will open its new features to roughly 155 different countries, which is breaking new ground in terms of providing equity investment opportunity to a global audience, according to my interview with Abra’s CEO Bill Barhydt. Customers will be able to use cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies for these investment products.

“It’s a great honor to be recognized amongst the CB Insights AI 100, a prestigious list of AI companies disrupting markets, industries and economies around the world,” said Guy Zipori, CEO and Co-Founder of Skyline AI. “When it comes to commercial real estate, the market is ripe for our technology and we look forward to continuously increasing our impact through partnerships with leading players in the industry.”

The company’s machine learning software considers everything from the location and browsing history of a would-be buyer to the type of device he’s using to decide whether to reject an online credit card purchase as fraudulent. In 2018, Forter tripled its customer base, passing 100 retailers, including Nordstrom.

Extending Fundbox Pay into checkout mirrors the B2C commerce experience that offers access to capital, which can cement the deal for sellers and offer terms for buyers tailored to their individual risk profiles. Rymarz explained that the concept behind Fundbox Pay (and now its extended availability) recognizes that — for retailers, restaurants or consumers — credit card networks exist to serve as a bridge to commerce.

Artificial intelligence is infusing virtually every sector of the modern economy, and real estate is no exception. From machine learning algorithms that match homebuyers to listings to chatbots attending to clients’ needs, the real estate industry is buying into technological solutions that aim to make the industry more efficient, profitable and service-oriented.

The transformative HR platform HiBob has signed a strategic partnership with Europe’s fastest growing employee experience platform, Perkbox, to deliver an unrivaled engagement and well-being proposition to its clients via its benefits solution.

globaliD, a leading digital identity service provider, and OneVisage, the inventor of 3D facial biometry and 3D graphical authentication running on standard mobile devices, announced today a partnership to integrate OneVisage’s Premier Face™ 3D facial biometry technology in globaliD’s digital identity offering.

“The combination of rich, granular, up-to-date, data in the open web with AI and machine learning capabilities enables insurers to change the game” 

Elad Tsur, CEO & Co-founder

Our distinguished selection panel, comprising CEOs, CIOs, CFOs, industry analysts and the editorial board of CIOReview narrowed the 20 Most Promising Insurance Technology Solution Providers that exhibit competence in delivering competent comprehensive insurance technology innovations.

Southeast Asia is about to see an overhaul of its financial system. Which company in the region is most likely to challenge the status quo? An imperfect way to judge would be the amount of money they have raised. Using Tech in Asia’s data, we’ve generated this constantly updated list of 20 fintech companies in Southeast Asia who have raised the most money from investors.

Speaking at Calcalist’s annual Mind the Data conference Or Hiltch said Skyline AI’s algorithms can assess potential revenue and the best time to buy, sell, or remodel a certain property

Planck Resolution, an artificial intelligence (AI) based InsurTech start-up, has appointed Leandro DalleMule as General Manager for North America.

The Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC), the professional body for the UK recruitment industry, has unveiled people platform HiBob – the transformative HR management tool – as its latest business partner.

I’ve always been a loner, avoiding crowds as much as possible, but last Friday I found myself in the company of 500 million people.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 28, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — TrueAccord, the first-of-its-kind tech platform that transforms the antiquated debt recovery industry, announced today that financial industry veteran Sheila Monroe has been named Chief Operating Officer.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) – German asset manager DWS Group (DE:DWSG) said on Tuesday it has entered into a strategic partnership with and become a minority shareholder in Skyline AI, a real estate asset management technology company.

Silot, an Intelligent Banking solution provider, brought home the trophy of 2018 Overall Winner. Besides winning the title, Silot also won a spot-on Visa Everywhere Initiative global accelerator program. It is a 10-week immersive program designed for startups to advance from 1.0 to enterprise level by receiving access to Visa’s payments infrastructure, integration with Visa’s APIs and mentorship from Visa senior leaders.

HiBob, the transformative HR platform that is moving the industry from task-based functionality to people-inspired engagement, has appointed Joel Farrow as managing director.

If you’re like us, chances are you hear the word “Bitcoin” and your eyes glaze over a little. But as with much of the finance world—which deliberately uses obfuscating language—you just have to chip away at a few of the core ideas and suddenly you find you’re not as out of the game as you thought.

Since the explosion of ICOs last year, the cryptocurrency market has undergone some noticeable changes.

Lufax, one of China’s leading online wealth management groups has said it is working towards moving its entire peer-to-peer (P2P) lending portfolio, valued at “tens of billions US dollars”, onto the blockchain platform.

Southeast Asian fintech startup Akulaku has secured a $70-million Series C funding round led by Chinese financial technology company FinUp.

Yoyo Wallet, dubbed Europe’s fastest-growing mobile payments loyalty app, secured a $30 million partnership agreement from Digital ID creator and investment firm Hard Yaka, investors in Coinbase, Ripple and Dwolla.

Melissa Guzy on the Asian working environment, how the FinTech sector is changing, and why gender diversity is better in Asia.

Today’s insights show comes to you live from Money20/20 in Las Vegas at the Leadership Loft. Sarah Kocianski is moderating the debate between Team USA and Team ROW. Sam Maule’s representing 11:FS in Team USA and Simon Taylor’s doing the same on Team ROW.

A Singapore-based startup called Beam announced today that it has raised US$6.4 million in a seed funding round led by Sequoia India, Founders Fund, Zhenfund, and Class 5 Global.

The financial services industry is being transformed by insurgent startups. From capital markets to insurance and digital banking to wealth management, the Fintech 250 are among the most promising of these companies globally.

(Bloomberg) — Singapore’s sidewalks are about to get a lot more crowded. Beam, co-founded by the former Asian chief for Chinese bike-sharing giant Ofo Inc., has raised $6.4 million from investors including Sequoia India to deploy its electric scooters around the island nation.

Online lenders arrived on scene at the perfect time for Silicon Valley. Coming out of the 2008 financial crisis, banks – the traditional lenders – were slow to understand the way that consumers wanted to access credit and were (understandably) reluctant to take on risk.

Forter, a company that uses machine learning to detect and prevent fraud in online retail transactions, announced today that it has raised $50 million in a series D funding round led by March Capital Partners, bringing its total financing to $100 million.

A great customer experience is at the heart of customer loyalty and support – and we all want OUR customers to have that “Wow!” experience.

Over the last decade as an Asia-based VC investor, I have spent considerable time working with portfolio companies on building partnerships and strategic relationships across the region.

Launched in 2014, Trumid matches buyers and sellers in the bond market at a time when some investors are complaining about reduced liquidity.

To borrowers who owe money, it’s a living nightmare. To Ohad Samet, cofounder and CEO of TrueAccord, a San Francisco debt-collection startup that has raised nearly $30 million, it’s a software problem.

Residents in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), as well as additional nations in the European Union, can now transfer euros or other national currencies directly to Abra, which in turn deposits bitcoin into users’ digital wallets.

Paidy is Japan’s first instantly issued post-pay credit service for eCommerce consumers. In addition, the two companies are partnering on new digital payment experiences that will give Japanese consumers more options when buying online and in-store.

Planck Resolution, which provides artificial intelligence-based data platforms for commercial insurance companies, raised $12M in a Round A. The round was led by Arbor Ventures with a participation of Viola Fintech and Eight Roads.

Skyline was founded in 2017 and has offices in New York, in addition to Tel Aviv. In March, the company raised $3 million from Sequoia, and it’s brought in $21 million from NYCA Partners, Arbor Ventures, and iAngels, to date.

Arbor Ventures is a venture capital firm investing in early stage companies at the intersection of financial services, data and digital commerce, through partnering with founders, accelerating the growth of next gen fintech…

Venture capital firm ZhenFund has participated in the $1.7-million seed round of video editing platform Kapwing while Hong Kong-based Arbor Ventures has joined the $6-million Series A round of US-based globaliD.

Japanese Startup Paidy Raises $55M Series C to Let People Shop Online Without a Credit Card

Bitcoin payment startup Abra has announced the addition of Visa and Mastercard payment options for buying bitcoin on its platform.

During a panel discussion with Village Global’s Erik Torenberg and Arbor Ventures’ Melissa Guzy, the Ethereum Foundation’s co-founder Lubin said that we are now moving into “phase two” of blockchain systems, “where we will see real scalability”.

Commercial insurance data company, Planck Re, announced today that it has raised $12 million to generate insights that streamline the commercial underwriting process. This means insurers will be able to instantly and accurately underwrite any policy.

Planck Re announces their first funding round of $12M to empower commercial insurers by generating insights that streamline the commercial underwriting process – enabling insurers to instantly and accurately underwrite any policy. The round was led by Arbor Ventures and includes Viola FinTech and Eight Roads.

Arbor Ventures is a venture capital investor based in Hong Kong, with an additional presence in Shanghai, Tokyo, and Tel Aviv. Arbor participated in series A and series B rounds for Abra, a digital wallet startup based in Mountain View.

Today, Fundbox, the small business growth company, announced that the company has won the coveted Israeli Atlas Award for Best Fintech Start-Up.

The course finder is hosted on Quottly, a San Francisco-based startup that dubs itself a “Kayak for college courses.” Quottly was founded in 2015 and claims to host more than 2 million transferable online courses from 700 colleges.

Today Fundbox, a leader in credit and payments for small businesses serving other businesses (SMB2B), announced that it has been selected as winner of the “Best Overall Business Lending Company” award by FinTech Breakthrough, an independent organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies and products in the global FinTech market today.

“The best advice I can offer anyone, so they will be highly successful in business this year, is to remain committed to why your customers originally engaged with your business. Don’t forget that your business data is your most precious asset; and should be treated that way. It is also important to never forget that you have a duty to your customers to protect that data…data that they entrust you with.” – Adam Rogas

Today, Fundbox, the small business growth company, announced an integration with Eventbrite that gives event creators across the United States access to Fundbox’s credit solution.

In this episode, we take a look at the leapfrog effect of banking within developing markets and share a great example of innovation within financial inclusion occurring in Africa.

Karmic Labs, Inc., is thrilled to share the news that the company has been named the winner of a Gold Stevie® Award in the Company of the Year – Financial Services – Small Business category, and a Silver Stevie® Award in the Financial Services – Banking category in The 16th Annual American Business Awards® today.

Today, Silot announced a pre-series A round worth US$2.87 million from fintech-oriented fund Arbor Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures.

Silot Pte. Ltd. (known as Silot) announced today its successful completion of pre-series A funding. Silot has raised 2.87 million USD from Arbor Ventures and Eight Roads Ventures. This funding follows just nine months after its initial seed funding from ZhenFund, which marked the angle investor’s first investment in to Southeast Asia.

Abra CEO Bill Barhydt told Business Insider: “I talk to hedge funds, high net worth individuals, even commodity speculators. They look at the volatility in the crypto markets and they see it as a huge opportunity. Once that happens, all hell will break loose. Once the floodgates are opened, they’re opened.”

Startups, said Samet, have a unique opportunity as banks and other incumbent financial services are moving out of “niche services,” leaving consumer gaps for younger players—especially those with AI and machine learning technology skills—to fill.

Stockpile, a website that lets people buy stock in the form of gift cards and purchase fractional shares in companies, is fielding a growing number of emails from customers asking when they can buy shares in music streaming service Spotify and software developer Dropbox, said Avi Lele, the start-up’s CEO.

Abra CEO Bill Barhydt on creating an app that allows people to invest in 20 cryptocurrencies and 50 fiat currencies through the use of bitcoin and litecoin.

LATTICE80 collaborated with the team over at Fintech Asia to bring together a more exhaustive list of Fintech influencers you need to know about in the region.

Abra users can exchange across any currency with no deposit or exchange transaction fees, at any time with no limitations.

According to Crunchbase Data, $28 billion has been funneled into 3,609 rounds for US-based seed, early and late-stage FinTech related startups since January 2008.

Abra, a global currency wallet that was the belle of the early Bitcoin ball, has just added 20 cryptocurrencies and 50 fiat currencies, a feature that allows you to top up and send cash and cryptocurrencies from inside the wallet.

Today, Abra announced support for 20 cryptocurrencies and 50 fiat currencies in a new version of our mobile app that includes a real-time exchange service across all 70 currencies. Users around the world can now buy, sell or store any of these 70 currencies within the Abra app and exchange between them at any time with no limitations. Abra is now the only all-in-one smartphone app in the world with these capabilities.

The problem is growing as the use of e-commerce itself evolves, according to Harshul Sanghi, managing partner of American Express Ventures, the strategic investment group of American Express, which announced Tuesday that it is investing in EverCompliant, a startup intent on stamping out e-commerce-related money laundering.

EverCompliant, the pioneer of Electronic Money Laundering Detection and Prevention (also known as Transaction Laundering), announced a strategic investment from American Express Ventures, which joins existing investors Arbor Ventures, Carmel Ventures, StarFarm Ventures and Nyca Partners.

According to Crunchbase Data, $28 billion has been funneled into 3,609 rounds for US-based seed, early and late-stage FinTech related startups since January 2008.

The SXSW EDU Conference & Festival named Quottly as the winner of the 2018 SXSW EDU Launch startup competition. Following a day of pitches from this year’s ten finalists, the announcement was made at the Launch party, presented by the Walton Family Foundation, in Austin, Texas.

Data-Driven Small Business Lender Launches Next Generation Credit Algorithm by Leveraging Real-Time Customer Data to Optimize Credit Decisions

Forter, the first e-commerce fraud prevention company to provide approve or decline decisions for all online transactions in real time while completely protecting merchants with a full chargeback guarantee, today announced the launch of its End-to-End Identity-based Fraud Protection solution. The new offering makes Forter the only company to go beyond transactions and chargeback coverage to protect every stage of the consumer lifecycle.

Founded by two female partners, Arbor Ventures says disruptive technologies investing needs multilateral thinking.

Its machine learning fraud prevention technology, tweaked for each merchant’s risk profile, monitors thousands of data points around an online transaction, including buyer behavior and geolocation, to decide instantaneously whether to decline a sale.

Here are our top 100 people to know in 2018: pioneers who are leading the charge to improve identity.

A partnership was announced today between Isracard, the largest credit card company in Israel, and Forter, the largest global real-time fraud decisioning solution. The partnership is part of a new initiative designed to enable Israeli merchants to reach a global audience online.

We live in interesting times: the largest single community is Facebook with two billion daily active users; the largest consumer bank is WeChat, with nearly 800 million customers, and where over 1 billion shoppers will be responsible for over $1 trillion in cross border e-commerce transactions by 2020.

NS8, the eCommerce fraud prevention solutions company, announced today that it has raised $7.5 million in Series Seed round funding. Arbor Ventures led the round of financing followed by existing investors TDF Ventures and Hanna Ventures.

Bob, the HR platform bringing simplicity to business management, today announced the launch of their benefits product for small-to-medium business clients. This offering enhances their cloud-based platform Bob, that businesses are already using to manage their HR needs from one centralized platform.

Forter, the first e-commerce fraud prevention company to provide approve or decline decisions for all online transactions in real time while completely protecting merchants with a full chargeback guarantee, today announced the launch of its End-to-End Identity-based Fraud Protection solution.

TrueAccord, the company driving transformation in the debt collection market, announced today that is has closed $22M in additional funding. Arbor Ventures led the round, with participation from existing and new investors including Nyca Investment Partnership, Assurant Growth Investing, Caffeinated Capital Fund, Felicis Venture, TenOneTen and Crystal Towers.

US and Philippines-based bitcoin startup Abra has raised $16 million in a Series B round led by new investor HCM International, Foxconn’s venture subsidiary. The round was joined by Silver8 Capital, Ignia and return Abra backers – Arbor Ventures, American Express Ventures, Jungle Ventures, Lehrer Hippeau and RRE, according to the company blog.

Stockpile, a brokerage popular with millennials that is pioneering fractional share stock investing, announced today that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding led by Fidelity backed Eight Roads Ventures, with participation by Mayfield, Arbor Ventures, Hanna Ventures, Wang Ventures, and others.

San Francisco-based Karmic, a provider of payment and expense management solutions, has raised $17.2 million in Series B financing, according to a blog post. The investors included Alsop Louie Partners, Arbor Ventures, Greycroft, Marketplace Funds and Startup Capital Ventures. In addition to the funding, Wei Hopeman and Jim Whims have joined Karmic’s board of directors.